If he had been a few years older, he might not have turned so readily to his thumb as a starting-point for any digital count.
The indifference manifested by very young children gradually disappears, and at the age of twelve or thirteen the tendency is decidedly in the direction of beginning with the little finger.

Fully three-fourths of all persons above that age will be found to count from the little finger toward the thumb, thus reversing the proportion that was found to obtain in the primary school rooms examined.
With respect to finger counting among civilized peoples, we fail, then, to find any universal law; the most that can be said is that more begin with the little finger than with the thumb.

But when we proceed to the study of this slight but important particular among savages, we find them employing a certain order of succession with such substantial uniformity that the conclusion is inevitable that there must lie back of this some well-defined reason, or perhaps instinct, which guides them in their choice.

This instinct is undoubtedly the outgrowth of the almost universal right-handedness of the human race.

In finger counting, whether among children or adults, the beginning is made on the left hand, except in the case of left-handed individuals; and even then the start is almost as likely to be on the left hand as on the right.